Casa De Cow Nectar

As I scanned through my massive photo roll on my phone, it occurred to me that I neglected to blog about moving day, so here goes. 

I sweated profusely as I whined mused about how there has never been a time in my life where it was less than 90 degrees out on the day I moved heavy objects in or out of a domicile. It all started my first summer semester of college in July of 2007. Granted I was electrocuted with excitement and too busy entertaining thoughts of red solo cups, frat parties and ohmygodnocurfews to notice the one hundred percent humidity I was swimming through on that summer day in Florida. I’m sure my parents noticed.

Then move out at the end of that summer actually fell on a day where it alternated between extreme heat and wicked thunderstorms. This pattern continued each year, and while maybe some regions still have a springy breeze or two around May, in Florida that ish is straight summertime. All this makes sense for someone who is going to school and operates on the schedule of semesters and things, but I moved to California in April and since I was going to the “Bay Area” I figured there would be fog and cold and I wore long sleeves, jeans and boots as my sister and I hauled all my clothes into my cousin’s house in 95 degree heat. Of course I signed my lease three months later and moved in on a hotter day and moved out 12 months later  on an even hotter day. All of this complaining would be unwarranted except that I keep moving to in-between places, dragging out the hellish heat moves. For three weeks after my Livermore lease came to an end, I stayed with a family in a sweet house in Fremont for three weeks before last Tuesday. And that’s where this whole convoluted story begins.

I packed up the meager amount of things I brought to live for those three weeks–three suitcases of clothes and my dog essentially–and decided to save the routine backyard dog poop pickup for last. I spent a good 20 minutes telling myself dog turds were like treasure and actually got kind of excited the more full the bag got until I ran out of room and headed in for a new bag. At this point I realized I totally locked myself out. I had my phone, luckily, so after bitching about my current situation to anyone who would listen via text while haphazardly looking for hidden keys, I tried to squeeze through the doggy door. Turns out while sausage dogs can navigate that territory with no problem, I cannot. I was pretty much golden from my toes up until I tried to squeeze my butt through. Perhaps b&e requires some level of pancake ass in order to be successful. Either way I was back to sitting on the ground texting and willing Ziggy to unlock the door. Eventually I found a screen that was removable and I got it out successfully. Then it was time to open the window, which is a lot easier from the inside, so perhaps I got a little overzealous when pushing the window pane up and it came all the way out of the frame knocking a glass vase full of decorative glass into beautiful glittering shards of glass all over the dining room floor.

This impressive crashing noise combined with my climbing through a now-non-existent window resulted in the neighbor giving me major side eye, so I spent the next hour sweeping and trying to fit a window pane back into its frame while listening for sirens. Luckily they didn’t come, and my only guess is that I looked like such an amateur that there was no way I could possibly be a real criminal–which gives me an idea. What if I just started robbing people in the most ridiculous ways to the point where no one would believe it was real life? People could reverse profile me all day. I’d be on my way to some shmancy house with a backpack on to steal some jewels and people would be like “Aww, I bet she bought that backpack because her high school load is heavy this year. I hope she studies hard and gets into a good college!” and I’d be like “Ha! Suck it!”

Anyway… After breaking into and therefore breaking everything in the house, I finished loading things into my car and drove to my new home. I met one of my roommates IRL for the first time (this is a common theme for me lately), we surrendered all our money, signed the lease and I recruited help to transport my bed and dresser from storage. Finally around 10pm I had proper bedroom furniture and my very own place to live and we all celebrated with wine and Thai food takeout. If you’ve never eaten Thai food on the floor of an unfurnished apartment with awesome people, I highly recommend it. It was pretty magical. 

Since moving in, I named the apartment “Casa De Cow Nectar” as an ironic take on two of three roomies’ lactose intolerance, worked a lot, set up wifi, took my first terrifying trip to Ikea, built a table, cooked my first meal in my own kitchen, read, explored cemeteries, cafes, bars and watched a bunch of chick flicks. This place is great, my roommates are fun and I feel good. I think this is the beginning of an exciting year. Who wants to come visit?!